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Friday, January 20, 2006

5 Things, Perhaps Random, Perhaps Not...[Core Dump 2]

This is for BG, because she started this....(and, honey, this is what passes for pop around here...not my fault):

"By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am."

`Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,' he said presently. `O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.'

"...Penny said, "Was it Henry James you're working on?""Er...yes," said Nick.She seemed to settle comfortably on that, but only said, "My father's got tons of Henry James. I think he calls him the Master.""Some of us do," said Nick. He blinked with the exalted humility of a devotee and sawed off a square of brown meat."Art makes life: wasn't that his motto? My father often quotes that.""It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process " said Nick."Something like that," said Penny...."

"But then oblivion dark, on all my senses fell. Again at length my thought reviving came, When I no longer found my self the same; Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow, And these large honours on my spreading brow; My long-descending locks the billows sweep, And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep; My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue, And ev’ry part divinely chang’d, I view."

"God will help me, I trust, to rid myself of any desire to follow the example of...other characters in this work. I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist."

5 comments:

"God will help me, I trust, to rid myself of any desire to follow the example of...other characters in this work. I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist."

What a quiet, deep thought this early Friday morning! Grish, your choices were much lovlier and more literary than mine.....One of mine was:

"Calgon has indeed, at some point in my life, taken me away."

LOL!!

Troy thought this meme was hard, I actually thought it was a fun one...

Sorry BEEJ...:-)I thought it was hard, too, just because I couldn't use my own fucking words about things private that I still wanted to - somehow - be public. Is that a fair restatement of the meme? If anyone is curious, I wanted each to be about something different (so not really random...). They are, in order:

FamilyNatureArt (duh..)SexSpirit

And that last one, the one you liked, is Nabokov, from Pale Fire, and the very next thing he says (which would have made it too identifiable) is an alternative existence as someone who fits the facts of Nabokov himself. It's one of those astonishing presto-change-o moments that snap you out of where you thought you were and put you somewhere entirely else.I love those, and they are the devil to do. The last pages of One Hundred years of Solitude are like that, too. And, in The Ambassadors, Henry James (heh!) moves, seamlessly, from looking at a painting, the painting itself, and then being in the subject of the painting - an entirely new setting. Child's play in movies, but when HJ wrote that, no.

Jesus, I am getting hifalutin again! However, I do love Ratty losing it there - it's like he took a tab or something...:-)

Nicely put Grishaxxx. I especially loved the Pale Fire reference, one of my favourite books ever (as I was forced to reveal painfully on a meme from Adorable Girlfriend). I know exactly what you mean about that presto-chango moment. I still shiver with delight thinking about the realization of what really happened there.

UC - you are so sweet! Months ago, when the "What Book Would You Be (if you were trapped in the 451 F universe)?" meme was being passed around, it was Pale Fire I chose. As I said then, I would have an Index, and I would be able to wear a handsome red running suit.

I don't know why some people think that book is just a stunt. Maybe they just skip over the poem, but don't they realize that it's a farce circling a tragedy? And even after that moment I quote, when the prestidigitator shows his hand, that (truly) sublime Index follows. Do you know of anything like it anywhere else?

No, I've never read anything at all like it. I tried browsing through Amazon reviews to see if anybody suggested simliar books. One recommendation was for Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Still I think the novel is unparalleled.

Reading the reviews has its own qualities, though. I had to print out one of the low scoring reviews written by a certain T. Scherff. It's cruel mocking him, but this review is too funny:

"Nabokov probably had more fun writing this book than you will have reading it. he was a novelist, poet, college professor, and critic which covers all of the characters in this book. he has particular fun with the critic who tries to analyze every aspect of the 999 line poem and bend it to meet his desired application rather than the clear intent of the author. this at times can be entertaining and funny, but it is overused and losses its originality quickly.the story wished to be told by the critic, kinbote, about his native country and the overthrow of its king adds nothing to the novel. that is probably why the poet, john shaw, didn't write about it to begin with.

the real value of the book is the "pale fire" poem of john shaw. it speaks for itself and really requires no interpretation.

although the structure of the book, half poem-half novel, is creative, nabokov never brings the concept past the inanities of the selfabsorptive dr kimbote. the book that starts bright with "pale fire" dims in the hands of kinbote."